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LETTERS 



OF 



CASSIUS M. CLAY. 



^ 



SLAVERY : THE EVIL-THE REMEDY. 



To the Editor of the Tribune : 

" And can the liberties of a nation be tliought secure, when 
we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the 
minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God ? * 
* * _ Indeed, 1 tremble for my coimtry, when I reflect that 
God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever: that, con- 
sidering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution 
of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is amon? 
possible events : that it may become probable by supernatural 
interference ! The Almighty has no attribute which can take 
side with us in such a contest." 

i Jefferson' s J^otes on Virsinia. 

Thomas Jefferson never tliought of the absur- 
dity of debating the question whether Slavery be 
an evil, nor was he indulgent to the delusive idea 
that it would be perpetual. He reduced the sub- 
ject to its certain elements : the master must lib. 
erate the slave, or the slave will exterminate the 
master. This conclusion is not weakened by the 
history of the past. The same color in the an- 
cient Republics enabled the State to use emanci- 
pation as a safety. valve ; yet notwithstanding 
the thorough amalgamation of the freed man with 
the free born, servile wars nearly extinguished by 
violence the noblest nations of antiquity : while 
no man dare say that Slavery was not the secret 
cause of their ultimate ruin. But if " His jus- 
tice" should " sleep for ever," and the tragedy so 
awfully predicted should never occur, still must 
we regard Slavery as the greatest evil that ever 
cursed a nation. 



Slavery is an evil to the slave, by depriving 
nearly three millions of men of the best gift of 
God to man — liberty. I stop here — this is enough 
of itself to give us a full anticipation of the long 
catalogue of human wo, and physical and intel- 
lectual and moral abasement which follows in the 
wake of Slavery. 

Slavery is an evil to the master. It is utterlj 
subservient of the Christian religion. It violates 
the great law upon which that religion is based, 
and on account of which it vaunts its preemi- 
nence. 

It corrupts our offspring by necessary associa- 
tion with an abandoned and degraded race, en- 
grafting in the young raind and heeirt all the vices 
and none of the virtues. 

It is the source of indolence and destructive of 
all industry, which in limes past among the wiss 
has ever been regarded as the first friend of reli- 
gion, morality and happiness. The poor despise 
labor, because Slavery makes it degrading. Th© 
mass of slaveholders are idlers. 

It is the mother of ignorance. The system of 
Common Schools has not succeeded in a singTe 
Slave State. Slavery and Education are natural 
enemies. In the Free States, 1 in 53 over tweaa. 



03" For lale at the office of the TRIBUNE. Price 81 23 per hundred, or $10 per thousand. Orders must be addressed to 

GREELEY &. McELRATH. Tribune BuUdmgs, New-YorJt 



Letters of Cassius M. Clay. 






ty-one years is unable to lead and write : in the 
Slave States, 1 in 13.3 is unable to write and 
read ! 

It is opposed to literature even in the educated 
classes. Noble aspirations and true glory depend 
upon virtue and good to man. The conscious 
injustice of Slavery hangs as a mill-stone about 
the necks of the sons of genius, and will not let 
them up I 

It is destructive of all mechanical excellence. 
The Free States build ships and steam-cars for 
the nations of the world — the Slave States import 
the handles for their axes — these primitive tools 
of the architect. The educated population avIH 
not work at all — theune«ucated must work with- 
out science and of course without tkill. If there 
be a given amount of mechanical genius among 
a people, it is of necessity deveit ped in proportion 
as a whole or part of the population are educated. 
In the Slave States the small portion educated is 
inert. 

It is antagrnlstic to the Fine Arts. Crsations 
of beauty and sublimity are the embodiments of 
the soul's imaginings; the fountain must surely 
be pure and placid whence these glorious and 
immortal and lovely images are reflected. Lib- 
erty has ever been the mother of the Arts. 

It retards population and wealth. Compare 
New- York and Virginia, Tennessee and Ohio — 
States of equal natural advantages and equal 
ages. The wealth of the Free States is in a 
much greater ratio even superior to that of the 
Slave States, than the population of the Free is 
greater than that of the Slave States. The ma- 
nufactures of the Slave as compared to those of 
the Free States are as 1 to 4 nearly, as is shown 
by statistics. I consider the accumulation of 
wealth in a less ratio. 

It impoverishes the soil and defaces the love- 
liest features of Nature. Washmgton advises a 
friend to remove from Pennsylvania to Virginia — 
Baying that cheap lands in Virginia were as good 
as the dear lands in Pennsylvania, and, anticipa- 
ting the abolition of Slavery, would be more pro- 
ductive. His anticipations have perished — 
Slavery still exists — the wild briar and the red 
fox are now there the field-growth and the inhab. 
itants ! 

It induces national poverty. Slaves consume 
more and produce less than Freemen. Hence 
illusive wealth, prodigality and bankruptcy, with- 
out the capability of bearing adversity or recov- 
ering from its influence : tlien come despair, dis- 
honor and crime. 

It is an evil to the free laborer, by forcing him 
by the laws of competition — supply and demand 
— to work for the wages of the slave, food and 
shelter. The poor, in the Slave States, arc the | 



most destitute native population in the United 
States. 

It sustains the public sentiment in favor of the 
deadly affray and the duel — these relics of a bar- 
barous age. 

It is the mother and the nurse of Lynch law, 
which I regard as the most horrid of all crimes, 
not even excepting parricide, which ancient legis- 
lators thought too impossible to be ever supposed 
in the legal code. If all the blood thus shed in 
the South could be gathered together, the horrid 
image which Emmett drew of the cruelty of his 
judges would grow pale in view of this greater 
terror. 

Where all these evils exist, how can Liberty, 
Constitutional Liberty, live ? No, indeed, it can 
not, and has not existed in conjunction with 
Slavery. We are but nominal Freemen, for 
though born to all the privileges known to the 
Constitution and the laws, written and prescrip. 
tive, wc have seen struck down with the leaden 
hand of Slavery, the most glorious banner that 
Freedom ever bore in the face of men — " Trial 
by Jurj' — Liberty of Speech and of the Press." — 
The North may be liable to censure in Congress 
for freedom of speech — may lose the privileges of 
the Post Office and the Right of Petition, and 
perhaps yet be free ; but we of the land of Slavery 
are ourselves slaves! Alas for the hypocritical 
cry of liberality and equality which demagogues 
sound for ever in our ears ! The Declaration of 
Independence comes back from all nations, not 
in notes of triumph and self-elation, but thunder- 
ing in our ears the everlasting lie — making us 
Infidels in the great world of Freedom — raising 
up to ourselves idols of wood and stone, inscribed 
with the name of Deity, where the one invisible 
and true God can never dwell. The blood of the 
heroes of '76 has been shed in vain. The just 
expectations of Hamilton, and Franklin, and 
Sherman, and Morris, and Adams, of the North, 
are betrayed by the continuance of Slaver}'. The 
fond anticipations of Washington, and Jefferson, 
and Madison, and Mason, of the South, have not 
been realized. The great experiment of Republi- 
can Government has not been fairly tested. If 
the Union should not be perpetual, nor the Amer- 
ican name be synonymous with that of Liberty 
in all coming time. Slavery is at once the cause, 
the crime and the avenger ! 

Are we indeed of that vaunted Saxon blood, 
which no dangers can appal, no obstacles ob- 
struct, and shall we sit with shivering limbs and 
dewy feet by the running stream, with inane fea- 
tures and stolid gaze, expecting this flood of evils 
to flow past, leaving the channel dry ? We who 
can conquer all things else, shall we be here only 
subdued, ingloriously whispering with white lips, 
There is no remedy ? Are the fowls free in the 



Slavery : The Evil — The Remedy. 



\ wide heavens — the fishes secure in the depths of 
-^the ocean — the beasts untrammeled in the forest 
^ wilds ; and shall Man only — Man, formed in the 
^ image of Deity, the heir of immortality — be 
r* doomed to hopeless servitude ? Yes, there is a 
remedy. 

There is one of four consequences to which 
Slavery inevitably leads ; — A continuance of tlie 
present relative position of the master and the 
slave, both as to numbers, intelligence, and physi- 
cal power ; Or an extermination of the blacks ; 
Or an extermination of the whites ; Or emanci- 
pation and removal, or emancipation and a com- 
munity of interests between tlie races. 

The present relative position between the 
blacks and whites (even if undisturbed by exter- 
nal influences, which we cannot hope,) cannot 
long continue. Statistics of numbers show that 
in the whole Slave States the black increases on 
the white population. The dullest eye can also 
see that the African, by association with the 
white race, has improved in intellect, and, by 
being transferred to a temperate clime, and 
forced to labor and to throw off the indolence of 
his native land, he is increasing in physical pow- 
er; while the white, by the same reversed laws, 
is retrograding in the same respects. Slavery 
then cannot remain for ever as it is. That the 
black race will be exterminated seems hardly 
probable from the above reflections, and because 
the great mass of human passions will be in favor 
of the increase of the slaves ad interim. Pride, 
love of power, blind avarice, and many other pas- 
sions are for it, and against it only fear in the op- 
posite scale. We are forced, therefore, to the 
<;occlusion that the slave population must increase 
till there is no' retreat but in extermination of the 
whites. Athens, Sparta, Sicily, and Rome near- 
ly, Hayti in modern times, did fall by servile 
wars. I have shown elsewhere that the slavery 
•of the blacks in the modern, is more dangerous 
than the slavery of the whites in the ancient sys- 
tem : then the intelligent slave was incorporated 
into the high caste of quondam masters, an eter- 
nal safety valve, which yet did not save from ex- 
plosions eminently disastrous. 

The negative of the second proposition, then, 
establishes the third, unless we avail ourselves of 
the last — emancipation. If my reasoning and 
facts be correct, there is not a sane mind in all 
the South who would not agree with me, that if 
we can be saved from the first named evils, by all 
means emancipate. Emancipation is entirely 
safe. Sparta and Athens turned the slaves by 
thousands into freedom with safety, who fought 
bravely for their common country. During the 
Revolution many emancipated slaves did good 
service in the cause of Liberty. We learn from 
Mr. Gurney, and other sources to be relied upon 



that British West India emancipation has been 
entirely successful, and productive of none of 
those evils which were so jjcrtinaciously foretold 
by interested pro-slavery men. The British have 
regiments of black men who m^ke fine soldiers — 
protectors, not enemies of theem[)ire. But above 
all, I rely not upon sound a priori reasoning only, 
but rather upon actual expeiionce. There arc in 
the United States, by the last census, 38G,2C5 
free blacks; 170,758 of whom are in the Free, 
the remainder in the Slave States. There are 
also 2,485,145 slaves — so that in fact about one. 
sixth of the wJiole black race in America are al- 
ready free I No danger or evil consequence has 
ensued from the residence of these 386,2t)5 freed, 
men among us. Who then will be so absurd as 
to contend that the liberation of the other five- 
sixths will endanger the safety or happiness of 
the whites? / repeat, then, that emancipation 
is entirely safe. 

Emancipation must either be by the voluntary 
consent of the masters, or by force of law. I re- 
gard voluntary emancipation as the most proba- 
ble, the most desirable, and the most practicable. 
For the slave-holding land-holder would not be 
less rich in consequence — the enhancement of 
the value of land would compensate for the loss 
in slaves. A comparison of the price of lands 
of equal quality in the Free and Slave States 
will prove this conclusively. If, however, by 
force of law — the law having once sanctioned 
slaves as property — the great principle which is 
recognized by all civilized Governments, that 
private property cannot be taken for public use 
without just compensation — dictates that slaves 
should not be liberated without the consent of the 
masters, or without paying an equivalent to the 
owners. Under the sanction of law, one man 
invests the proceeds of his labor in slaves, another 
in land ; in the course of time it becomes neces- 
sHry to the common weal to buy up the lands for 
redistribution or culture in conmion — how should 
the tax be laid ? Of course upon lands, slaves, 
and personal property — in a word, upon tlie whole 
property of the whole people. If, on the other 
hand, it should nearly concern the safety and 
happiness of society, both the slaveholder and the 
non-slaveholder, that slaves should be taken and 
emancipated, then by the same legitimate course 
of reasoning the whole property of the State 
should be taxed for the purpose. If emancipation 
shall take place by force of law, shall it be by the 
laws of the States or by the law of Congress ? — 
Let Congress abolish Slavery wherever she has 
jurisdiction — in the military places, in the Terri. 
tories, and on the high seas — and in the District 
of Columbia, if the contracts of cession with Vir- 
ginia and Maryland allow. 

I lay down the broad rule that Congress should 



4 



Letters of Cassius M. Clay. 



do no more for the perpetuation of Slavery than 
she is specially bound to do. The debates in the 
Federal Convention prove that the Free States 
did not intend to assume the responsibilities of 
Slavery. In the language of Roger Sherman and 
others, they could not acknowledge the right of 
''' property in men." There is then no moral ob- 
ligation in the Union to sustain the rights of the 
South in slaves, except only they are morally 
bound to regard the contract with the South, and 
in the construction of that compact the presump- 
tion in all cases of doubt is in favor of Liberty. — 
On the contrary, the United States are morally 
bound, by all means consistent with the Consti 
tution, to extinguish Slavery. The word slave 
is not used in the Constitution, because the pro- 
mises of all the Southern Members of the Con- 
vention led to final emancipation, and a noble 
^ame on all hands induced the expulsion of the 
word from the charter of Human Liberty. I can 
not agree that there is any law superior to that of 
tlie Federal Constitution. It is the part of Chris- 
tians to model human laws after the Divine code, 
but the law in the present state of light from on 
High, must be paramount to the Bible itself. If 
any other practice should prevail, the confusion 
of religious interpretations of the Divine Will 
would be endless and insufferable. In a country 
where Jews, and Christians, and Infidels, and 
Deists, and Catholics, and Protestants, and Fou- 
sierists, and Mormonites, and Millerites, and Sha- 
kers, all are concentrated into one nation, it would 
be subversive of all governmental action that each 
sect should set up a Divine code as each " under, 
stands it," superior to the Constitution itself. If 
a case ever arises where conscience dictates a dif- 
ferent doctrine — that the penalty of the law is ra- 
ther to be borne than its prescriptions obeyed — 
then also there arises at the same time a case 



where the sufferer must look to God only for ap" 
probation and sustainment — he has passed from 
all appeal to mankind. 

I dissent, then, from the ultra anti-slavery and 
the ultra pro-slavery men. I cannot join the 
North in the violation of the Constitution — I can- 
not stand by the South in asking the moral sanc- 
tion of the North ; nor do I regard it as a breach 
of the Constitutional compact that she should 
seek a higher grade of civilization by using all 
legal means for the entire expulsion of Slavery in 
the United States. Congress having no power 
over Slavery in the States, the States, each one 
for itself, where its Constitution does not forbid, 
certainly has and should exercise the power of 
purchase and emancipation. In Kentucky, the 
Constitution forbids the Legislature to act upon 
the subject. We must therefore look to a Con- 
vention, or that which I most hope, to voluntary 
emancipation. Enlightened self-interest, human- 
ity and religion are moving on with slow yet irre- 
sistible force to that final result. Let the whole 
North in mass, in conjunction with the patriotic 
of the South, withdraw the moral sanction and 
legal power of the Union from the sustainment of 
Slavery ; then our existence as a People with un- 
divided interests may yet be consummated. May 
the Ruler of all nations, the common Father of all 
men, who is no respecter of persons, and whose 
laws are not violated with impunity by individu- 
als nor by States, move us to be just, happy and 
free ! May that spirit which has eternally conse- 
crated in the admiration of men Salamis and Ma- 
rathon, and Bunker's Hill and Yorktown, inspire 
our hearts, till the glorious principles of '76 shall 
be fully vindicated, and throughout the land shall 
be established " Liberty and Uaion, one and in- 
separable, now and for ever." 

Lexington, Ky. JVod. 1843. 



C. M. CLAY. 



EMANCIPATION-ITS EFFECTS. 



Is CassiiDS M. Clay an Abolitionist ! 



The following is an extract from a noble Speech delivered by Mr. Clay, in reply to Richard M. John- 
son and others, at a meeting held at the White Sulphnr Springs, Scott Co. (Ky.) Dec. 3()th, to favor the 
Annexation of Texas to the Union. Col. Johnson having been called to preside, and resolutions affirming 
the policy of uniting Texas to the Union having been proposed and advocated by the Chairman and others, 
Mr. C M. Clay offered a substitute of opposite tenor, which he advocated in a glorious Speech. We do 
not care to publish so much of it as relates to the main question, for the Annexation of Texas, with Slavery 
existing therein, to this Union is as impossible as the fulling of the sky. There was a time when this was 
possible, but now there appears to be no considerable party or section in favor of it, and we have no room 
to waste in opposition to a frustrated, by-gone mischief. 

But there is a portion of Mr. Clay's remarks, taken in consideration with his position and the genera' 
aspects of the Slavery question, which deserves attention. Among the leading axioms of those (including 
the 'Liberty' candidate for President,) who advocate the Abolition of Slavery at so much per month, are 
these — 1. That every slaveholder is to be regarded as an enemy of Human Rights, and proscribed, so far 
as possible, from all public station; 2. That nobody who belongs to either of the great Political parties 
can be favorable to Emancipation, but every Whig is, of necessity, 'Pro-Slavery,' and an enemy to Lib- 
erty for all; 3. That no man can be heard in opposition to Slavery in the Slave States, either orally or 
through the journals. Now, in refutation of these assumptions, we cite the case of Cassius M. Clay, at 
this moment an ardent Whig and (at the time of making tliis speech) an extensive slaveholder, who has re- 
peatedly spoken, both in the Kentucky Legislature and before the People, in earnest, powerful opposition 
to Slavery, and whose Speech is published in full in the leading journal of Kentucky, embodying such sen- 
timents as the foUowinff : 



" To say that I atn an Abolitionist, In the sense I 
in which the enemies of all moral progress would I 
have you believe — that I would sanction insurrec- 
tion and massacre — my wife, children, mother, 
brothers and sisters, and relations and friends, 
are all hostages for my sincerity, when, restrain- 
ing myself to the use of courteous terms, I repel 
the unjust and dishonoring imputation. That I 
am an Abolitionist in the sense that I would take 
away, without just compensation, the rights of 
property in slaves, which the laws secure to me 
and to some thirty or forty thousand citizens of 
Kentucky, my letter to the Tribune, which is be- 
fore the world, disproves. 

" Still, sir, I am an Abolitionist. Such an 
Abolitionist as I have been from my boyhood. — 
Such an Abolitionist as I was in 1S36, when I 
declared in my place in the House of Represent- 
atives, to which I was just then eligible, that if 
the Constitution did not give us power to protect 
ourselves against the infernal slave-trade, that I 
renounced it, and would appeal to a Convention 
for a new one. Such an Abolitionist as I was in 
1840, when I declared in the same House of Re- 
presentatives that I wished to place the State of 
Kentucky in such a position, by sustaining the 
law of 1833, that she could move at any time she 



thought it conducive to her highest interest to 
free herself from Slavery. Such an Abolitionist 
as I have ever avowed myself in public speeches 
and writings to the People of this District, that if 
Kentucky was wise enough to free herself from 
the counsels of Pro-Slavery men. Slavery would 
perish of itself by voluntary action of masters and 
the irresistible force of circumstances which would 
convince the People to the use of free instead of 
slave labor, as every way most advantageous. — 
Such an Abolitionist as were the band of immor- 
tal men who formed the Federal Constitution, 
who would not have the word ' slave ' in that sa- 
cred instrument, am I. Such an Abolitionist as 
was Washington — who, so far from lending coun- 
tenance to the propagation of Slavery, as you are 
now doing, declared that on all proper occasions 
his influence and his vote should be cast for the 
extinguishment of Slavery among men — am I 
also. Such an Abolitionist as was Jefferson, the 
great father of Democracy, whom you all profess 
to follow — who foretold, what has since partially 
come to pass, that Slavery, if not destroyed, would 
jeopardize and finally extinguish the liberties of 
the whites themselves ; who foresaw, with an un- 
erring glance, that the Slavery of the black race 
if not remedied by the whites, would at last rem 



Letters of Cassivs M. Clay. 



edy itself — such an Abolitionist am I also. And 
being such, I take issue with the opinion which 
has been here to-day, as it has been often else- 
where, most dogmatically advanced, that the 
question is " whether the whites shall rule the 
blacks, or the blacks shall rule the whites-" — 
Such an issue is false in theory, false in practice, 
and as proven to be false by all experience. It is 
derogatory to human nature, and blasphemy 
against God himself. 

" All America, except Brazil and the United 
States, have freed their slaves ; and are the whites 
slaves in consequence ? At the Revolution, on 
the day of the Declaration of Independence, all 
the States held slaves, not excepting Massachu- 
setts. Now there are thirteen non-slaveholding 
States: are those ten millions of Northerners 
slaves? Great Britain, in conjunction with all 
Europe, except the miserable anarchies of Spain 
and Portugal, have long since emancipated many 
slaves ; and now, in the year 1813, to her honor 
be it spoken, having liberated 30,000,000 of her 
East India serfs, in all her wide domains, which 
touch on every sea, and embrace every clime un- 
der the whole heavens, there is not, nor indeed can 
be, a single slave : and is she enslaved ? No, she 
has sense enough to know, and heart enough to 
feel, that it is justice, honor and glory which se- 
cure the liberties of a People, and make them in- 
vincible and immortal. 

" Do gentlemen take the absurd position that 
•one hundred and eighty thousand freed men could 
enslave Kentucky ? West India emancipation 
proves that the great majority of freed men could 
be employed economically in the same offices at 
small wages, which they now fill, with perhaps 
more case and safety than now exist. But should 
they prove turbulent, for which there would be no 
cause — and which no man in his senses believes 
would happen — and were I disposed to indulge in 
that vaunting spirit, which to-day has so power- 
fully infected us, Vv'ith five thousand such troops 
as these I have the honor to command, to whom 
gentlemen have been pleased to allude in a man- 
ner so complimentary at my expense, I would un- 
dertake to drive from the State the assembled one 
hundred and eighty thousand in arms. They fur- 
ther tell us, with most reverential gravity, that 
' God lias designed some men for slaves, and man 
need not attempt to reverse the decree ; it is bet- 
ter that the blacks should be slaves than the 
whites.' This proposition, which I denounce as 
utterly false, passes away before the glance of rea- 
son, as the dew before a summer's sun. 

" I shall admit, merely for the sake of argu- 
■mont, that some men always have, and possibly 



will perform menial offices for the more fortunate. 
Let the law of Nature or of God have its undis. 
turbed action — let the performance of those offices 
be voluntary on the part of servants, and that 
beautiful harmony by which the highest intellect 
is united, by successive inferior links, to the low- 
est mind, will never be disturbed. The sensitive 
and highly organized and intellectual will gradu- 
ally rise from service to command : the stolid, the 
profligate, the insensible and coarsely organized 
will sink into their places : the law of God and 
enlightened Freedom will still be preserved, and 
the greatest good to the greatest number be secu- 
red for ever. But when by municipal law, and 
not by the law of fitness, which is the law of Na- 
ture, not regarding the distinctions of morals, 
mind or body, whole classes are doomed to servi- 
tude, when the intellectual, the sensitive, the fool- 
ish, the rude, the good, the bad, the refined, the 
degraded, are all depressed to one level, never 
more to rise for ever, then comes evil — nothing 
but evil — like as from dammed up waters or pent 
up streams, floods and explosions come slowly, 
but come at last — so Nature mocks with tempo- 
rary desolation at the obstacles man would oppose 
to her progress, and at length moves on once 
more in all the untrammeled vigor and unfading 
lovehness which, from eternity, was decreed. 

" That the black is inferior to the white, I rea- 
dily allow; but that Vice may depress the one, 
and Virtue by successive generations elevate the 
other, till the two races meet on one common 
level, I am also firmly convinced. Modern sci- 
ence, in the breeding and culture of other animals 
than man, has most fully proved this fact, which 
the ablest observers of man himself all allow, that 
mental and moral and physical development trans- 
mit their several properties to the descendants — 
corroborating by experience the Divine decree 
that the virtues and the vices of the father shall 
be visited on the children to the third and fourth 
generation. In the capitals of Europe, blacks 
have attained to the highest places of social and 
literary eminence. That they are capable of a 
high degree of civilization, Hayti daily illustrates. 
There we have lately seen a revolution, conduct, 
ed in a manner that would do honor to the first 
People on earth, one of the avowed grounds of 
which was that President Boyer neglected to se- 
cure General Education to the People — a consid- 
eration that should make some vaunted States 
blush in comparison. After the expulsion of the 
tyrant, they set about forming a more Republican 
Constitution, admitting the whites, who had par- 
ticipiated in their dangers and success, to all the 
rights of citizenship. 



On the Presidency. 



"If history be true, we owe to the Egyptians, 
said to be of the modern Moorish race, the arts 
and sciences, and our early seeds of civilization. 
How many centuries did it take to bring them to 
perfection ! When we reflect how little time the 
negro race has been under the influences of other 
civilized nations, and the rapid progress they have 
made in an upward direction, we have no reason 
to treat them with that absurd contempt which 
in both the eye of reason and religion stands 
equally condemned. Why then, I am tauntingly 
asked, by both Pro-Slavery and Anti-Slavery 
men, do I hold slaves ? Uninfluenced by the 
opinions of the world, I intend, in my own good 
time, to act, or not to act, as to me seems best in 
view of all the premises.* Yet, I thus far pledge 



myself, that whenever Kentucky will join mc in 
freeing ourselves from this curse, which weighs 
us down even unto death, the slaves I own she 
shall dispose of as to her seems best. I shall ask 
nothing in return, but the enhanced value of my 
land, which must ensue gradually from the day 
that we become indeed a free and independent 
State. I will go yet further — give me free labor, 
and I will not only give up my slaves, but I will 
agree to be taxed to buy the remainder from those 
who are unwilling or unable consistently, with a 
regard to pecuniary interest, to present them to 
the State; and then I shall deem myself and my 
posterity richer in dollars and cents even than we 
were before." 



3Ir. Clay has since emancipated his slaves. 



ON THE PRESIDENCY. 



Communicated for the N. Y. Tribune. 

Lexington, Ky. March 20, 1844. 
VV. J. McKiN.NEY, Esq. Mayor of Daijton, Ohio. 

Dear Sir; — Your letter of February 15th last 
was in due time received, and I have waited thus 
long with the intention of not aHswering it at all, 
because, as I am a private citizen, not seeking 
office at the hands of the People, it might seem 
to place me in the presumptuous attitude of at- 
tempting to influence, by mere weight of opinion, 
the votes of my countrymen in their choice of 
President — when neither my age, experience nor 
fame warranted the assumption. But since the 
reception of your letter, I have received many of 
similar import from Liberty men and Anti-Slave- 
ry Whigs in most of the Northern States, pressing 
upon me an expression of opinion, in such a man- 
ner that I should prove false to that spirit of can- 
dor which I proudly cherish as characteristic of 
the principles which I advocate, did I, through 
any affectation of humility, remain longer silent. 
You ask me, " Will you, if you live and are able 
to vote at the approaching Presidential Election, 
vote for Henry Clay for President ? If the Third 
Party, or Liberty men, should have an Electoral 
Ticket in your State, would you vote that ticket 
in preference? Were you a citizen of Ohio, 
which of these tickets would you vote?" The 
last two questions are such as would require va- 



rious other suppositions to be made, before I 
could give a suitable answer in justice to myself 
and all the parties concerned, which would be 
too voluminous for the space of a single letter ; 
and, for all practical purposes, they will be suffi- 
ciently answered in my reply to the first question, 
that It is 7ny most decided determination " to 
vote for Henry Clay for President." Men 
never have and never will, in all cases, think 
alike : all Government is necessarily a sacrifice, 
to some extent, of individual will : that is the 
best Government to each individual which fosters 
or allows the mostof what that individual believes 
to be conducive to his best interests. The ques. 
tion then is not, ' Can I find some man to vote 
for among seventeen millions, who thinks in all 
respects as myself ? ' but, ' Who is the man, all 
things present and remote considered, that will 
most probably be able by success to give efl^ectu- 
ation to those great measures which I deem con- 
ducive to my welfare and the welfare of my whole 
Country ? ' This question every voter in the Re- 
public must determine for himself. For myself, 
after looking calmly upon all the surrounding cir- 
cumstances. Conscience, Patriotism, and (if oth- 
ers prefer the term) enlightened Self-interest con. 
strain me to vote for Henry Clay. The Tariff, 
the Currency, the Lands, Economy, Executive 
and Ministerial Responsibility, and many other 



Letters of Cassius M. Clay 



interests, all depend, in my humble judgment, on 
Mr. Clay's election for beneficial determination. 
And if he is elected, the decision of 1840, passed 
by the People, will be confirmed, and the policy 
of the Country settled. Then, and (such is the 
anarchy of the public mind) not till then, shall 
we have time to look about us, and project that 
other great reform — the reduction of American 
Slavery to its constitutional limits, and to con- 
centrate the united condemnation of the civilized 
world to its final and utter extinction. 

Mr. Clay is indeed a slaveholder. I wish he 
were not. Yet it does not become mc, who have 
so lately ceased to be a slaveholder myself, to con- 
demn him. It is not my province to defend Mr. 
Clay : this he is abundantly able to do himself. — 
It remains with posterity to determine how much 
shall be due him for the glorious impulse his fer- 
vent spirit has given to Liberty throughout tlie 
world ; and with them also to say how much 
shall be subtracted from this appreciation, for his 
having only failed to do all that could be done in 
this holy cause. Cyrus, Thcmistocles, Plato, 
Cato, Aristides, Demosthenes, Cincinnatus and 
Cicero sacrificed to base heathen gods; yet no 
man, because they knew not the true God, will 
say that they were not religious, great, good and 
patriotic men. T. B. Macaulay, one of the most 
acute and enlightened men of this or any era, in 
his review of the life of Francis Bacon, justly 




011 899 040 7 



says : 

" We should think it unjust to call St. Louis a 
wicked man because, in an age in whicii tolera- 
tion was generally regarded as a sin, he persecu- 
ted heretics. We should think it unjust to call 
Cowper's friend, John Newton, a hypocrite and a 
monster, because, at a time when the slave-trade 
was commonly considered by the most respecta- 
ble people as an innocent and beneficial traffic, 
he went, largely provided with hymn-books and 
hand-cufFs, on a Guinea voyage. An immoral 
action, being in a particular society generally 
considered as innocent, is a good plea for an indi- 
vidual who, being one of that society, and having 
adopted the notions which prevail among his 
neighbors, commits that action." 

I cannot, then, because Mr. Clay is a slave- 
holder, in a community where the whole Chris 
tian Church of all denominations — the only pro- 
fessed teachers of morals among the People — are 
also slaveholders, proscribe him, for that single 
thing of difference between us. 

In saying thus much in justification of my 
course in voting for Mr. Clay, I should be false 
to my own reputation, ungrateful to that large 
portion of Anti-Slavery men who have symp-i- 
thized with mc in my feeble efforts in the cause 
of Universal Liberty, and recreant to that glori- 
ous cause itself, if I did not avow my belief that 



^J^!^.^^l °^ CONGRESS 

the time is near ; 
will not, ought n( 
holder guiltless, 
declare, in the na 
our Republican I.. 
the {)rincip!e of ' the greatest good to the greatest 
number,' that no man, after the next Prtsidential 
Election, when so much light shall have been 
shed upon this subject, should be deemed fit to 
rule over a Republican, Christian People, who 
shall violate, by holding slaves, the ordy two prin- 
ciples upon Vvhich either Christianity or Repuhll. 
canism can stand the test of philosophical scru- 
tiny for a single moment, 

In conclusion, in refutation of the slanders of 
the Washington Globe — which are ever harmless 
where that print is known — injustice to Mr. Clay, 
and in vindication of my own self-respect, you 
will allow me to say that my opinions and my 
action upon the subject of Slavery are all my 
own ; that however much I may esteem Mr. Clay 
as a man, a Statesman, and a friend — though I 
may regard him as one of the most frank, noble, 
practical, wise, eloquent and patriotic of those 
who, in this or any other age, have assumed to 
govern a great Nation — the Editor of the Globe 
but makes exhibition of his own ignoble spirit, 
when he insinuates that Henry Clay would play 
a double part to deceive the American People, by 
dictating tome; or that I, humble as I may be in 
the estimation of my countiy, would be used by 
him, or any other man, or set of men, for any dis- 
honorable purpose, or be treated with upon any 
other terms than those of absolute equality. 

Trusting that your wishes, as well as the pur- 
poses of those persons who have done me the ho- 
nor to address me by letter upon this subject, will 
be best subserved by making this answer pubhc, 
I send it at once to the press. 

Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

C. M. CLAY. 

P. S. — Reform, in Jeremy Bentham's day, was 
termed "innovation;" this owl-faced age has 
improved in this respect — now "fanaticism" is 
the word — a strong word — yet, when will Ameri- 
cans learn it ! there is a still stronger word than 
this—" Truth." If there be really in all this 
wide Union a single man of the McDuffie school, 
of good sense, cool, calculating, quick in the dis- 
ccrnmcnt of the " pith o' things," and above all 
no "enthusiast," let him read Thomas Carlyle's 
" Sphinx " in the " Past and Present," and then 
tell us whether there be a " Sphinx " also in 
America ; and solve us the riddle ! The descrip- 
tion covers four pages — will not "the land of 
tracts" look to it? C. M. C. 



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